Food Safety Modernization Act Passes, Surprising Everyone

Call it "the little bill that could." After more than a year of votes and deliberation – to say nothing of attacks by everyone from Tea Party members and small farmers – the Food Safety Modernization Act has finally passed Congress. It wasn't an easy journey.

Remember last year when, in the depths of the Great Peanut Recall of 2009, it came out that the Peanut Corporation of America had knowingly shipped out salmonella-contaminated peanut paste to its customers and had been doing so for almost two years?

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

"The nation's food-protection system relies largely on voluntary efforts by food makers to process food safely," observed the New York Times in January, 2009, "and agree to recall tainted foods when their own tests show problems. Government inspections are rare and sometimes inadequate."

Peanut Corp had actually found traces of Salmonella in its processing plant in 2007 and 2008 but, rather than issuing recalls or even cleaning up the plant, it simply continued re-testing until it got the results it wanted. The result, of course, was the recall that ended up costing at least nine people their lives, put nearly 700 people into hospital, and cost numerous companies a total of a billion dollars in lost revenues.

Most Popular

The massive recall, which affected 361 companies and 3,913 different products ranging from peanut butter and frozen convenience foods to dog treats and snack crackers, drove home a very painful fact: our food safety regulations and the agencies responsible for enforcing them were in desperate need of an overhaul. Clearly, the voluntary system we had been using wasn't working. (See the Christian Science Monitor's 'Five Food Recalls that Rattled the Industry')

This week's passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act will go a long way toward changing that. Until now, for example, the government could not order a recall of contaminated or defective food: it had to rely upon the willingness of offending companies to do so.

The new law, passed by the House of Representatives Tuesday 215-144, was passed unanimously by the Senate in a roll call vote Sunday much to the surprise of, well, pretty much everyone.

"The bill survived a near-fatal constitutional snafu, filibuster threats, fierce debate over controversial amendments, and managed to gain ground amidst a jam-packed legislative agenda in one of the most productive Congresses in recent history," wrote Food Safety News. "In the last 18 months, food safety legislation cleared the Senate twice and the House three times."

"Allow the FDA to order a recall of tainted foods. Currently the agency can only negotiate with businesses to order voluntary recalls;

"Require the FDA to create new produce safety regulations for producers of the highest risk fruits and vegetables;

"Increase inspections of domestic and foreign food facilities, directing the most resources to those operations with the highest risk profiles. The riskiest domestic facilities would be inspected every three years;

"Require farms and processors to keep records to help the government trace recalled foods;

The new legislation really only effects the Food and Drug Administration but its impact will be felt the producers of 80 percent of what we eat. Meat, poultry, and processed eggs are overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Peanut butter, fresh eggs, and spinach, on the other hand, fall under the purview of the FDA. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill before Christmas.